


animal mind

by simplykayley



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 17:10:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18877540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplykayley/pseuds/simplykayley
Summary: James Buchanan Barnes, James Buchanan Barnes, James Buchanan BarnesIt sounds distinctly fake to him the longer that it loops. Like the name of a great man that you only read about in a history book, years after he’s even done the great thing he’s in the book for.





	animal mind

_ 2015 _

  
  


_ James Buchanan Barnes, James Buchanan Barnes, James Buchanan Barnes _

 

He repeats the name obsessively in the back of his mind wherever he is running through, London, Stockholm, Rome. It sounds distinctly fake to him the longer that it loops. Like the name of a great man that you only read about in a history book, years after he’s even done the great thing he’s in the book for.  Sometimes it flickers in and out of his memories, he will go to bed remembering and wake with a distinct spacing missing in his consciousness. However, it is one of the only things that always come back to him in the end, hours, days or even if it’s weeks later. 

 

Well, that and the man. The man is something that he can no longer forget now. If they were to recapture him and open his head just to give a shock directly to his brain, he does not think that he could forget the blue eyes and blonde hair. He associates a partial flicker of memory with the characteristics, a lovely smile and a smudge of dirt across a cheekbone. The smile is always directed towards him. 

  
  


+++

 

“Cap,” Sam says into the comms, his tone palpably pitiful. Natasha is just as noticeably quiet on her end. 

“We’ll just keep looking.” He intones, the four words becoming somewhat of his motto in the weeks that they have been hunting down Bucky across the world, or the Winter Soldier, whichever he ends of being when they are lucky enough to even catch a glimpse. It would be funny to him if it wasn’t so damn pitiful. 

It’s quiet on both ends this time and he thinks that maybe this is it. This is the mission where Sam tells him that he has a life back in D.C. Where Natasha tells him that she probably has 100 other things she could be doing that very minute that doesn’t involve looking for a man that almost killed her and most definitely reminded her of her less than pleasant past. Steve Rogers, The man out of time, alone once more. 

But it never comes. Sam agrees with him and Natasha begins to list off a rendezvous point for them to meet at and they are off again. Steve wonders if there is any method to Bucky’s madness. 

<>

Natasha books a cheap room that night next to Sam and his equally as cheap room in the middle of Paris. She stands in front of him outside their doors, looking up but she says nothing at all. After a moment she presses a short kiss to the side of his cheek and goes into her room like she was never there. 

He goes into his room and sits down at the aging desk pushed up against the wall of the bland room. Sam is not in the room when he takes his seat, probably off somewhere trying to order food in broken French that Steve tried to teach him on the plane ride from the United States. Light from the street in front of the window casts a glow across the wood and he lays the file that he holds, that he has been holding for the past few months, down in front of him. The sides are worn down from how many times he had flipped through it. If someone wanted to they could probably find his whole handprint on the pages, across the pictures and reports in a multitude of languages. He flips it to a random page, it doesn’t really matter to him at this point, he has all of them memorized and begins to read. 

**Mission Report - #44567898 - “The Winter Soldier -**

**October 6, 1996**

**_“The Winter Soldier” was due back from the mission at 1400 hours. After a half an hour of tardiness, Strike Team 3 was sent to analyze the situation and retrieve “The Winter Soldier”. Strike Team 3 failed to gain intel on the whereabouts of “The Winter Soldier” and additional measures were taken. Tracking of its whereabouts commenced and it was found at 0300 in a tenant building at 166 Montague Street, Brooklyn, New York, 36 miles from the location of the failed mission. Investigations into the failings of the “The Winter Soldier’” is active and it has been swiped and put back into cryotherapy for the remainder of the investigation._ **

  
  


<>

It is almost like he appears out of the dust with how sudden it is. One moment, Steve is alone, staring out across the cobblestone road as everyday conversation floods his ears from around him, Sam is still sleeping back at the hotel while Natasha followed a lead that she said she had but didn’t promise would bring anything, and then Bucky is sitting in the seat across from him in front of the cafe. 

He has an outward appearance of calm but Steve knows him, even now, after years of torture and brainwashing, he still knows the set of his brows, the slope of his nose, the bow of his lips as he concentrates on something. He suddenly realizes just how much he missed the other man. Every part of his body felt the loss, sung for the man that he thought to be no more. 

Then suddenly his eyes are turned towards Steve and his heart jumps in his chest as they stare at each other. They are the same blue that he remembers. He can picture Bucky perfectly from 1942, his eyes gleaming as a smile pulls at his red lips. He is looking at Steve in the memory. He has never seen someone look so different but so much the same at once. 

“Will you ever stop searching for me?”

Steve twitches at the question, he does not have to think it over for even a second but he hesitates to answer anyway. He can not think of anything else that he rather do than to roam the earth for eternity in chase of Bucky. 

However, he does not tell Bucky this. “I don’t think I can.” He says, still honest. 

Bucky gives him a smile with the answer to his question and it almost kills his heart, no matter the serum that ran through his veins. “I didn’t think so, I’m not even sure why I asked. I remember that much about you at least.” 

“Do you remember me?” He asks, suddenly terribly desperate for some kind of answer. 

Bucky stares at him for a long moment, pressing a lone finger to his bottom lip as he seems to think and it feels like they are stuck in time, stuck at that moment but then he opens his mouth to answer. 

“It’s strange.” He begins. “To wake up in the middle of the night and have no idea where you are, to have no idea who you are.” His eyes are dark are the bore into Steve. “But I never forget who you are anymore, Steve.” 

**Author's Note:**

> 166 Montague St, Brooklyn NY is an actual address and an actual tenement building that was built around the end of the 19th century and the address of Steve Rogers (and by default Bucky Barnes) before WW2 according to the Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe. 
> 
>  
> 
> Comments and kudos are much appreciated. All mistakes that you might find are mine.


End file.
